The Journal's all-purpose sports report.

On most days at the Old Course, some degree of wind is a given. But even forecasts for a particularly blustery day at the British Open didn’t fully prepare golfers for the strength of the gusts they encountered early Saturday morning.

Those not lucky enough to finish their second rounds Friday stepped back on the course at 7 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET) amid gusts of up to 40 mph. And nowhere were the conditions more treacherous than on the far end of the course, which runs in a loop from the 7th green to the 11th green on a stretch of land that juts out between the River Eden and the North Sea. Read More »

The second round of the British Open entered its second day Saturday and there is still no end in sight. First delayed by rain Friday, then halted by nightfall, play resumed for all of 32 minutes Saturday morning before being suspended because of high winds at the Old Course.
With flagsticks flapping, players and caddies in ski hats and grandstands mostly empty, the second round resumed at 7 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET) with 42 players on the course. Only three made it off the 18th green. The last group still has 10 holes to play.
When the horns blew signaling the halt in play, some players fumed about the R&A’s decision to send them out there in the first place. After walking off the 15th green, Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson had an animated discussion with an R&A official. An ESPN microphone picked up Spieth saying, “We should have never even started.” Canadian David Hearn wrote on Twitter, “It needs to be a fair contest and wasn’t this morning.” Read More »

Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia broke the world record in the women’s 1500 meters on Friday, running 3:50.07 in Monaco that saw perhaps the single best day of metric mile races among both men and women in recent history.

Friday’s world record came at the Meeting Herculis in Monaco, the tenth leg of track-and field’s elite Diamond League meet series. Among the 28 men and women who raced respective 1500-meter races, 20 ran personal bests, including at least four regional records. Read More »

England’s Danny Willett tees off on the 17th during day two of the British Open at St. Andrews.

Zuma Press

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Englishman Danny Willett surged into the lead early in the second round of the British Open on Friday after heavy rains halted play for more than three hours.

Willett, 27, shot a 3-under-par 69 to open a two-stroke lead heading into the clubhouse. Zach Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion, and Marc Warren finished their rounds at 7-under, tied for second with Dustin Johnson.

Johnson is scheduled to tee off alongside Jordan Spieth and Hideki Matsuyama at 5:48 p.m. local time (12:48 p.m. ET). Tiger Woods is set to tee off at 6:10 p.m. (1:10 p.m. ET). It is unlikely those groups will finish their rounds before darkness sets in.

Only the first two groups had teed off when play was suspended at 6:46 a.m. By mid-morning, massive puddles were visible on the first and 18th fairways. But crews of greenkeepers armed with squeegees made the course playable again relatively quickly. And once play resumed around 10 a.m, the conditions improved dramatically.

Of the first 33 players to complete their rounds Friday, 21 finished under par for the day. But the wind is picking up again, and the forecast calls for possible showers early in the evening. The best time to post a low score Friday may have already passed. Read More »

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver gestures during a press conference before the NBA draft lottery in New York.

Associated Press

NBA commissioner Adam Silver has, in many ways, set himself up as someone who might surpass predecessor David Stern as an exceedingly effective leader—and this without all the rabid pithiness. But for all the acclaim Silver has received since taking over, a labor battle brewing on the horizon is a reminder he’s still largely concerned with what the owners want—which might not be what the players, and by proxy the fans, are interested in.

Recently, Silver claimed that a “significant” number of teams in the NBA were losing money—this, after the league signed a $24 billion dollar broadcasting deal and made pointed steps to increase the salary cap by an amount that’s led to even supporting players getting unfathomable paychecks. In the last few years, teams have sold at record amounts; attendances and ratings have reached new highs. Only a handful of teams pay the luxury tax, and last year, a report revealed that of the teams who were losing money, only the Brooklyn Nets stood out as exceptional money losers. (Go Nets!) It’s true that with the league set up the way it is, teams like the Nets that shoot for the moon and slam into an asteroid are more likely to be totally screwed in their short term future. “Ultimately, though, Silver can’t guarantee profitability for all 30 teams, just as he can’t legislate proper management of all 30 teams,” writes Yahoo’s Dan Devine. “If Mikhail Prokhorov wants to burn hundreds of millions in an ill-considered and ill-fated pursuit of a championship, that’s between him and his accountant.”

Michele Roberts, the executive director of the players union, essentially blew a rude raspberry at all of Silver’s assertions, responding that the league is very healthy, that any financial problems are not on the players, and basically that if he’s looking for a fight, he should come and get it. Which begs the question of whether the league is hurdling toward another lockout in 2017, as the current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire at the end of 2016. The hyper competent Roberts isn’t the type to roll over unlike her predecessor, the forcefully deposed Billy Hunter; Silver, too, has his bag of tricks. Already he’s hinted at how absurd it is that basketball players make more than teachers and doctors… an observation that overlooks, you know, basic capitalism and how the NBA is set up to operate. “This is beautiful, disgusting rhetoric,” writes SB Nation’s Tom Ziller. “A seven-figure career administrator has the temerity to compare artificially-capped entertainer salaries to those of teachers and doctors on behalf of the interests of a cartel of billionaire hedge fund hawks, tech boomers, real estate developers and man-child heirs.” But on that count, Silver is only following what his bosses want.

That a lockout would be a huge bummer goes without saying, especially if it comes down to a war of egos. To paraphrase Tom Brady, this isn’t ISIS; clearly, there should be some resolution. “The NBA is clearly thriving—the league is in its best position since at least the mid-1990s—and there is no telling how much fan goodwill and support will erode during a lockout, especially a prolonged one,” writes Deadspin’s Kevin Draper. But with the excitement of Steph Curry raining threes and LeBron James dunking all over the planet comes the very sober reminder that this is still a business of very rich people, all of whom would like to be a little richer—at the expense of each other, and certainly at the expense of the fans should a lockout come to fruition. Read More »

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland—The British Open is running more than three hours behind schedule after heavy rains soaked the Old Course early Friday morning. Only the first two groups had teed off when play was suspended at 6:46 a.m. local time (1:46 a.m. ET). By mid-morning, massive puddles were visible on the first and 18th fairways. But crews of greenskeepers armed with squeegees made the course playable again relatively quickly, and play resumed around 10 a.m.

The delay virtually guarantees that the second round won’t conclude until Saturday. Barring any further breaks in play, most players in the field should be able to complete their rounds before dusk Friday, though the forecast calls for showers and possible gale-force winds in the evening. Read More »

Tiger Woods waits on the 16th green during his first round 76, on the opening day of the 2015 British Open Golf Championship on The Old Course at St Andrews in Scotland.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Tiger Woods got off to a confidence-busting start in the first round of the British Open here. From the first fairway, he hit a simple wedge shot fat, sending the ball into the Swilcan Burn in front of the green. Things didn’t get much better for Woods after that.

Under optimal morning conditions on the Old Course, Woods shot a 40 on the front nine—holes that most players in the early going played at under par—on his way to a four-over-par 76 total. That was 11 strokes behind Dustin Johnson, the leader in the clubhousee leader. More tellingly, it was worse than all but two of the first 64 players to finish their first rounds. (Tom Watson also shot 76.)

Woods’s previous high score as a professional at St. Andrews was 73, which he shot in the second and third rounds in 2010.

A tired, resigned-looking Woods told a media scrum after his round that his warm up was excellent. But he hit fat approach shots on both the first and second holes, leading to bogeys, and also managed to bogey the par-five fifth, which played downwind and has been the easiest hole on the course.

Woods’s start resembled his dismal front nine in round one at last month’s U.S. Open at Chambers Bay. There he also bogeyed the first two holes and also shot four over on the opening nine. He followed his opening round 80 with a 76 in round two to miss the cut by 11.

“Discouraging, yeah. I was a little—angered a little bit,” Woods said about his fat wedge shot on the first. “But hey, I figured I’ve got 17 holes to fight through it, and hopefully I can make some birdies out there, which I didn’t do.”

Woods shot even par on the back nine, into the wind. That was a good score compared the to field, which Woods held out as a sign of hope.

He said his best shot to make the cut at St. Andrews was bad weather, with which he has more experience than most in the field. “If you shoot some good, solid rounds in tough conditions like that, players can move up the board, and hopefully I’m one of them,” he said. Read More »

It has been a difficult year to say the least for Concacaf, the body that oversees soccer in North and Central America as well as the Caribbean. But its regional tournament, the Gold Cup, just concluded a group stage that has left fans clamoring for more.

Wednesday night, Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago battled to a wild 4-4 draw in Charlotte, N.C., a result that put El Tri in a tough quarterfinal matchup against World Cup quarterfinalist Costa Rica. Hours before, Cuba topped Guatemala 1-0 to surprisingly advance to the quarterfinals. Read More »

Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson line up their putts on the 16th green during the first round of the British Open golf championship on the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland.

Reuters

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland–The first round of the British Open began much like the U.S. Open ended: with Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson vying for the top spot on the leaderboard. But after his 18th-hole collapse at Chambers Bay, Johnson recovered well enough Thursday to outplay Spieth.

With morning conditions at the Old Course ripe for low scores, Johnson shot a 7-under-par 65 to claim the early lead while Spieth, playing in the same group, finished just two strokes back with a 5-under 67.

For Spieth, the round dispelled any notion that he would suffer from playing in a PGA Tour event in the U.S. last weekend instead of arriving here early. But it also showed that even with Rory McIlroy out with an ankle injury, there are other players who could keep him from winning the third leg of the grand slam. Read More »

SPORTS, THE JOURNAL WAY

The Daily Fix blog provides takes on the latest sports news. Features include The Count, a look at the most revealing sports stats, as well as regular live reports of major sports events. Go to the Journal’s sports page for up-to-date coverage on the latest in sports.

Search The Daily Fix1

About The Daily Fix

Jeremy Gordon is a freelance writer who lives in Chicago. He has written for TheAtlantic.com, MTV and Prefix and occasionally Tumbles and Tweets. The last time he cried was when Steve Bartman dropped the ball.

Jared Diamond writes about sports for The Wall Street Journal. He currently serves as a beat reporter covering the New York Mets and Major League Baseball.